'Sickness Bug' Causes Airplane Passenger To Faint, 3 Others 'Violently Sick'

A “sickness bug” was reported on a Jet2 flight from Reus, Spain, to Yeadon, England, causing a few passengers on board the aircraft to fall ill.

Emergency vehicles were called to meet the flight which landed at the Leeds Bradford Airport at 9:45 p.m. local time (4:45 p.m. EDT) Saturday after at least four people on the plane fell “violently sick” while the flight was on air. One of the four passengers passed out from the sickness.

According to BBC, a spokesman for Jet2 released the following statement on the incident.

"We can confirm that the crew on board flight LS298 from Reus to Leeds Bradford Airport arranged an ambulance for two passengers who were taken ill. The crew were alerted to a further two, non-associated cases of passengers feeling unwell on board. On arrival, as a precaution they were immediately checked over in the ambulance before heading home. All other passengers disembarked as normal and continued their journeys. The safety and care of our customers is always our first priority.”

The Yorkshire Ambulance Service's (YAS) Hazardous Area Response Team were seen surrounding the aircraft, which landed as scheduled at the airport.

Passenger Nicola Titley wrote on Facebook: "People dropping like flies on the plane... never seen so many emergency vehicles surround a plane so fast after landing."

She also praised the flight attendants for handling the situation well.

Although the cause for the passengers’ sickness was not confirmed by health officials, Titley said it was believed that the four who had taken ill might have stayed in the same hotel.

While the four passengers who had taken ill received immediate medical attention, the rest of the passengers were allowed to disembark the plane only after they had been examined by emergency personnel and the “sickness bug” had been determined not to be contagious. The passengers had to wait for an hour on the flight before disembarking.

“They wouldn’t let us off the plane when [we] landed because the poorly people needed medical attention and we needed checking for signs of illness too,” one unidentified passenger told Metro.

Although an ambulance was called on the scene for the sick passengers, a YAS spokesperson confirmed that no one was transported to the hospital.

West Yorkshire Police Sergeant Chris Brumfitt, who attended the scene, wrote on Twitter: “Joint emergency service response to Leeds / Bradford airport tonight after reports of a number of people falling ill on an in-bound flight. Fortunately nothing more than a sickness bug.”

On Aug. 15, a Frontier flight from Orlando, Florida, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was diverted to Raleigh-Durham International Airport, North Carolina, after an unknown odor was detected in the plane’s cabin.

Fourteen people, including a flight attendant and an infant on board the flight reportedly received medical assistance. Eight of them were treated at the airport, while three of them were taken to the WakeMed Brier Creek hospital. The nature of treatment for the remaining three was unknown.